Chvrches faced the classic buzz-band dilemma when it came time to make their new album: having to regroup and re-find themselves after an unforeseen tidal wave of attention around their breakthrough record kept them on the road for a couple of years.

“When we started the band we thought it’d be a writing project that we’d put online,” says vocalist Lauren Mayberry on the phone from London, England, where the touring cycle for the Scottish synth-pop trio’s just-dropped second record, Every Open Eye (Universal Canada), kicks off.

“So it was really exciting to get back to writing in the studio we have in a basement in Glasgow for a while rather than focusing on the live element.”

Chvrches peddle the kind of highly melodic, female-fronted synth pop that’s caught on big in the last few years, and the new album is even brighter, bolder and cleaner, the hooks given weight by the power and substance of Mayberry’s no-bullshit lyrics. “Cut off / I’ll go my way if I’m going at all,” she asserts on opener Never Ending Circles.

Greater accessibility wasn’t the point, though.

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“We didn’t change our approach to writing,” says Mayberry. “We never said, ‘Let’s write a pop song,’ or ‘Let’s write something darker or weirder.’ When I listen to this record it sounds like a more focused, sure of itself version of Chvrches.

“We have a stronger bond from all the touring, and we were trusting each other more at doing whatever it is in our skill set that we’re best at.”

Reviews have been positive across the board, and their two Danforth Music Hall shows sold out in a blink. Like the best electronic-focused acts – the Knife, Justice – the trio of Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty crafts a dynamic show, with thoughtful stage design, lights aplenty and, this time around, electronic percussion that’ll put to use skills Mayberry picked up as a drummer in teenage rock bands.

“We always want to give fans a proper live performance rather than a glorified playback party.”

But if you weren’t able to nab tickets, drown your sorrows in their cover of Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean, recorded last week for BBC Radio 1.

“Stations give you a list of songs to choose a cover from, for exclusive content. We were having to choose from a reasonably heinous list of songs, and that one wasn’t on it because it was surprise-released. We were like, ‘We want to do that one.’ And I think we got away with it – ish.”